


Ningyo

by epithalamium



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M, Old Age, Suicide Attempt, This is what no one signed up for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epithalamium/pseuds/epithalamium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could swear that the mermaid had smiled at him, and the smile revealed sharp teeth. Like a cat's. Or maybe a shark's.</p><p>Ningyo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ningyo

**Author's Note:**

> For [Rintori Week](http://rintoriweek.tumblr.com/) over at Tumblr. Day 7: Midnight Swim.
> 
> This is not what I set out to write. I don't know where this came from.

In the middle of the night, the folklorist Nitori Aiichirou closed the lid of the box containing his recently finished manuscript, placed a letter addressed to his editor on top it, and went out for a walk.

He wore an oversized woollen coat, a scarf, and his heaviest pair of boots. The small town by the sea where he lived had been enjoying a week's worth of mild weather, but the transition between winter and spring was an uneasy one and the nights were still cold enough that he could feel the chill deep in his bones.

Several months ago, Aiichirou had turned fifty. It was not, as he had thought when he was a young man with seemingly unreachable dreams, a bad age to be. A comfortable age. He had learned to compromise and so, even when dreams remained un-reached, was satisfied with what he had achieved.

He was probably too young to think about life in that way, but his publisher had thrown a small party for his birthday and in the middle of all the champagne sipping and nibbling on the small sandwiches and talking to his colleagues, Aiichirou realised that there was no other place he'd rather be, no other person he wished to become.

And also, he was very very tired.

It wasn't a physical sort of weariness: habits gained during years spent losing swimming competitions kept Aiichirou fit and as spry—if not as ever, then as spry as any man of his age had right to be. He still nips by the public pool when he has the time in order to swim a couple of laps. In fact, his editor had said once, jokingly, for a guy whose line of work comprised endless hours spent hunched over a book or a word processor, Aiichirou was in incredibly good shape.

Aiichirou had smiled. 'You're doing us a disservice,' he'd said. 'I know for a fact that we can both carry twenty heavy hardbacks between us.'

That wasn't the problem, then. The problem had more to do with all the nights he'd spent listening to himself breathe, staring at the cracks in the ceiling of his room. It had to do with the cake that his editor had given him—despite knowing that Aiichirou had never developed a liking for sweets—which remained untouched in Aiichirou's fridge. And the bottle of wine that had come with it which Aiichirou had finished off in one night.

No other place he'd rather be. No other person he wished to become.

Aiichirou had reached the shore without realising it; the salty scent of the sea very faint in the cold, and the waves that sounded too far away, like a pre-recorded sound heard over the radio. As a boy, Aiichirou had often sneaked out of his room in the middle of the night to take a walk by the seashore and the habit had stuck through the years. When he needed to untangle his thoughts, needed to think, or needed to stop thinking, this was where Aiichirou went.

Years ago, still reeling from a night spent drinking with friends from university, their last day, the day before the graduation ceremony that Aiichirou had been too sick to bother attending, Aiichirou had sat—although collapsed would be more accurate—next to an upturned boat, wondering if he was going to throw up, and saw a mermaid.

Almost luminous in the soft light from a gibbous moon; sleek pale skin that contrasted vividly with hair the colour of blood. Three or more metres from the shore, she—it—the _mermaid_ : Aiichirou could see its shoulders, the graceful arch of its neck. The rest of its body submerged in water, and it was as if the sea had stilled, a pause where Aiichirou and the mermaid had looked at each other and he was too far away, too drunk, too surprised to see what the mermaid actually looked like, remember facial features enough to describe them the morning after (although Aiichirou had never told anyone: folklorist or not, who was going to believe him?).

But he could swear that the mermaid had smiled at him, and the smile revealed sharp teeth. Like a cat's. Or maybe a shark's.

Ningyo.

A Westerner's idea of one, surely, but that smile? Aiichirou wasn't too sure. The mermaid's beauty, unnatural as it was in the moonlight, took on an almost sinister quality.

Bad luck. Perhaps that memory was what haunted Aiichirou now, but Aiichirou had never been a superstitious man.

*

Walking by the shore, he started picking up broken shells and small rocks, slipping them inside the pockets of his coat. The weight of them felt re-assuring, and he kept his hands inside his pockets, tracing the jagged lines where a shell had cracked in two, tracing the roughness of a rock that in his mind still held memories of warmth from the sun.

After a while, he realised his feet were wet, socks damp and making squishy noises in his sturdy leather boots. The water was past his ankles now, waves almost strong enough to pull him in, but not quite. The wind was colder against the parts of his body that the sea has already touched. Aiichirou shivered, but he didn't stop walking.

Water to his waist, the combined weight of his sodden coat and the rocks and shells in his pockets pulling him down, and then the great crash of a wave against his side.

Aiichirou fell.

And sank.

*

Something heavy was pressing against his chest, pressure easing only to return seconds later. Aiichirou tried to move away, pull away, but found that he couldn't. His body felt wrong. Everything felt wrong. He opened his mouth, or rather, someone opened his mouth for him, and then Aiichirou was breathing. He hadn't noticed he wasn't breathing before. Or maybe he was. It was all very confusing. He wished the pounding would stop.

He was still very very tired.

He opened his eyes, turning to one side as his body tried to get rid of the water that he'd swallowed, rejecting the sea. Aiichirou started to cry.

'Hey,' a voice, hoarse and familiar, although Aiichirou was sure he'd never heard it before. 'Hey.'

And then someone was holding Aiichirou close, a hand running gently up and down his back, strong arms, warmth, and that voice, saying again, unsure and tentative, 'Hey.'

When his sobs felt less like his body was going to be torn apart, Aiichirou looked up. At the face that looked tired and aged, but still the face he had half-seen, half-remembered, two decades and more ago. The man, for it was a man, not a she or an it or a mermaid, who had teeth like a cat's. Or a shark's.

'Are you all right?' said the man. Then he made a snorting sound. 'Of course you're not. You almost drowned. Are you feeling better?'

And even though his mind was full of questions and exclamations, Aiichirou said, 'I'm tired.'

'That's all right,' said the man, pulling Aiichirou closer. Aiichirou allowed himself to be held, his face pressed against the man's chest, and he could hear the man's heartbeat, faint but as constant as the waves. 'You don't have to talk.'

Seconds passed; the movement of the man's hand on his back, the muted thunder of the waves, the faint thud of the man's heartbeat against Aiichirou's ear, counting time. Aiichirou's throat hurt. Every breath and every sob felt like something was being taken from him, leaving him empty. He closed his eyes and leaned against the man.

'I've seen you lots of times before,' the man said, voice low, as if anything more would frighten Aiichirou away and he would vanish once more into the sea. 'Walking by the shore in the middle of the night. Tonight,' the man paused. Aiichirou frowned as the man's hand stilled, warm weight of it on the small of his back and Aiichirou wondered, belatedly realising that he was wearing nothing but trousers and socks, where his clothes had gone. His coat with the shells and small rocks. He bit his lip.

'Tonight,' said the man, 'you didn't stop.'

'I'm tired,' said Aiichirou again. 'You're not—you're, well, you're _human_.'

The man laughed, just a rush of breath, and he sounded amused and puzzled when he said, 'Is it because of the teeth?'

'I've seen you,' said Aiichirou. It hurt to speak and he could only manage a few words at a time. He swallowed, tasted salt and bitterness in his mouth. 'Before. Once. I thought.' He wasn't going to admit to the man that he'd thought it was a mermaid he'd seen all those years ago. He wasn't sure the man wouldn't laugh again. Maybe, Aiichirou thought, he would tell the man later. 'You didn't look human.'

'My mum would've killed me if she'd ever found out I'd been swimming in the sea at night,' said the man. 'But I'd left something in our boat, so I went back. I thought you were a drunk who'd wandered by the shore by mistake.'

Aiichirou laughed. 'I was.'

The man nodded, as if satisfied. 'Come on, then.' He stood up slowly, pulling Aiichirou with him. Aiichirou looked down at his feet, his sand-encrusted socks and trousers, but the man's hand was on his arm, urging him to move on.

'Where?'

'You need clothes. And blankets. And tea.' The man smiled. 'Good thing I decided to stick around. High tide earlier this evening, but it wasn't so bad. My boat's nearby.'

Aiichirou nodded. His legs still felt a bit shaky, and he was glad the man didn't let go of his arm as they started walking towards the man's boat. 

'I'm Rin, by the way,' said the man. 'Matsuoka Rin.'

'Nitori Aiichirou. It's nice,' said Aiichirou, low enough that the man could pretend not to hear, 'to finally meet you, Rin.'

*


End file.
